On November 22, Friends of a Free Iran intergroup held a conference at the European Parliament with keynote speaker, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Chaired by Javier Zarzalejos, the co-chair of the , the event included representatives from various political groups. Discussions centered on the terrorist intentions against Professor Alejo Vidal Quadras, the former Vice President of the European Parliament. Professor Vidal-Quadras’s message emphasized the importance of a strategy involving sanctions, diplomatic pressure, international isolation, and support for the democratic opposition in Iran.
📽️The European parliament has expressed its support to @VidalQuadras, after the attack against him. It was he himself who pointed at the Iranian regime.#Iran has become a global threat. The situation is untenable, for any democratic sensibility. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/bOeNlzMQgU
— F. Javier Zarzalejos Nieto (@FZarzalejos) November 23, 2023
In her speech, Mrs. Rajavi connected the attack on Mr. Vidal-Quadras to the policy of appeasement toward Khamenei. She highlighted the crime as a consequence of Europe’s failure to shut down the regime’s embassies, which she claimed serve as command headquarters for terrorism. Representatives at the conference expressed solidarity with Vidal Quadras, criticized Europe’s inaction, and called for a decisive policy, including designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization. They attributed the Middle East crisis to the Iranian regime and emphasized the NCRI as a genuine alternative with a stable, democratic platform.
Excerpts of statement by Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, former VP of European Parliament at the EP Conference:
“Let me remind you that the Iranian regime uses four methods to impose its malignant will upon us. The first one is based on the panic Western governments feel for an Iran equipped with nuclear weapons. From that perspective, the JCPOA is purely tactical to buy time until they achieve their goals. The second is hostage taking and hostage swapping. The mullahs arrest innocent western visitors to Iran and after exchange them for convicted terrorists serving sentence in European or American territories. The third element relies on obscure interests of some big Western companies operating in Iran. On that particular point, doing business with the Iranian dictatorship is bread for today and hunger for tomorrow. And the fourth and last method is the capacity of the Iranian regime to plot and execute terrorist attacks as the one I have recently suffered. We must not forget that if you accept blackmailing once you will be blackmailed forever,” Dr. Vidal-Quadras, wrote.
“Let me state very clearly to you that the EU policy in relation to the Islamic Republic of Iran has to change and this change must be as profound as effective. For decades, the West has tried to appease, to negotiate, to dialogue and to make concessions. We have now all the evidence that this approach has not worked, and it will never work. One can make the effort to compromise with a rational enemy. Reaching an agreement with irrational Absolute Evil is just impossible,” EP Vice President until 2014 added.